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WARS 



BETWKEX 



THE DANES AND GERMANS. 



»OR TllR 



POSSESSION OF SCHLESWIG. 



BV t>K()F. ADOLPHUS L. KOEPPEN 



FROM THE "AMERICAN REVIEW" FOR NOVEMBER, U48. 



WAKS BETWEEN THE DANES AND GERMANS, ^^^^ 

' Ay o 

FOR THE POSSESSION OF SCHLESWIG. > XV / 

PART FIRST. li>t^^/ 

On feint d'ignorer que le Slesvig est une ancienne partie integTante de la Monarchie Danoise dont 
I'union indissoluble avec la couronne de Danemarc est consacree par les garanties solennelles des 
grandes Puissances de I'Eui'ope, et ou la langue et la nationalite Danoises existent depuis les temps les 

J)lus recules. On voudrait se cacher a soi-meme et au monde entier, qu'une grande partie de la popu- 
ation du Slesvig reste attacliee, avec une fidelite incbranlable, aux liens fondamentaux unissant le 
pays avec le Danemarc, et que cette population a constamment proteste de la maniere la plus ener- 
gique centre une incorporation dans la confederation Germanique, incorporation qu'on pretend medier 
moyennant une armee de ciuquante mille hommes ! — Semi-official article. 



The political question with regard to the 
relations of the duchies of Schleswig and 
Holstein to the kingdom of Denmark, which 
at the present time has excited so great a 
movement in the North, and called the 
Scandinavian nations to arms in self-defence 
against Germanic aggression, is not one of a 
recent date. This dispute has for centuries 
been the cause of destructive feuds, and 
during later years the subject of public 
discussions and violent debates, not only 
among the parties more immediately in- 
terested, but in the public and private as- 
semblies in Germany, and in a flood of 
publications, all breathing hostility against 
Denmark, and showing both a want of 
knowledge as to the points in dispute, and 
a scornful disregard of the just rights of 
that injured country. This old quarrel has 
now, by the general agitation in Europe, 
suddenly taken its ancient form of a casus 
belli, by the open rebeUion of Holstein, 
and the invasion of Denmark by the army 
of the Germanic Confederation. The ille- 
gality, injustice, and violence of these pro- 
ceedings are obvious to every observer 
who, without prejudice, has followed the 
course of events. And yet have the am- 
bitious authors of the sedition and the 
attack, attempted to envelope themselves 
in an outward show of right ; the secret 
springs which moved the whole machinery 
were left in the back-fjround, but still made 
their appearance now and then amidst the 
presumptuous confessions and boastful 
prognostications which, all at once, have 
intoxicated the forty miUions of Germans 
with hopes of conquest on land and sea, 
and thus made that pensive and philosoph- 

VOL. II. NO. V. NEW SERIES. 30 



ic nation blind to the evidences of history, 
faith, and justice. 

The Dano-Germanic contest is still 
going on : Denmark cannot yield ; she has 
already lost so much that she cannot submit 
to any more losses for the future. The issue 
of this contest is of vital importance to her ; 
she is already fighting for her existence. 
Nor will her Northern brethren let her sink, 
nor Russia, who has pledged her guaranty 
for the integrity of the Danish monarchy, 
permit its further dismemberment. On 
the final settlement of this war may per- 
haps depend the peace of Europe. And 
yet it has excited but very little attention 
and sympathy in this country. The duchy 
of Schleswig has generally been supposed 
to stand in the same relation to Denmark 
as that of Holstein, and its inhabitants to 
be true-born Germans, who were impa- 
tiently waiting for the moment when they 
might break loose from the small peaceful 
kingdom in the North, and join the " glo- 
rious destinies of the great united German 
Fatherland." It has been said and re- 
peated that, since the late revolution in 
France, the voice of the people has be- 
come the voice of God, — that it has torn 
to shreds the worm-eaten scrolls of feudal 
rights and treaties, and freely permitted the 
different tribes, German, Slavonic, and 
Italian, to group, form, and constitute 
themselves without any regard to kings 
and cabinets. Let this principle be carried 
out where foreign governments have impos- 
ed oppressive laws upon conquered nations, 
whose history, development, and pros^^er- 
ity they have disregarded, and whose na- 
tionalities they have crushed. Such may. 



Wars between the Danes and Germans, 



more or less, have been the conduct of 
Russia in Poland, and of Austria in Italy. 
But with regard to Denmark, her relations 
to the duchies have been entirely different. 
Her paternal rule had ever truly respected 
the nationalities and rights of her subjects. 
Her present liberal-minded monarch, on 
his succession to the throne, had given a 
free constitution, and such had been his 
desire to allow equal privileges to every 
part of his dominions, that he had pro- 
posed to give to Schleswig and Holstein, 
tliough the smaller population, the same 
representation and advantages which he 
conceded to his Danish people. The con- 
cessions freely granted by the enlightened 
sovereign, from his own conviction, in the 
midst of profound peace, and without a sign 
of disorder, had been hailed with universal 
satisfaction ; and afterwards, when violent 
commotions began to shake all Europe, 
and the general vertigo reached Holstein, 
the majority of the people in Schleswig, 
who had ever been sincerely attached to 
their mother-country, instantly stood for- 
ward, and in the most energetic manner 
protested against the separation, and the 
dreaded union with Germany. 

Looking from a distance upon the rapid 
course of events, and the steadfast opposi- 
tion of all Scandinavia, united, with one 
heart and hand, against the attacks and 
pedantic boastings of the German Parlia- 
ment, we may, through the dim vista of 
futurity, with confidence proclaim the vic- 
tory of the righteous side ; and in the 
mean time historically and impartially prove 
that the cause of the Danes is as good as 
their swords — that the rebellion in Holstein 
was brought about, not by the desire of the 
mass of the people in the duchies, but by 
the ambition of a few ringleaders, directly 
supported by Friederich Wilhelm IV., the 
hare-brained King of Prussia, who by 
means of kindling the flame of war in the 
North, and of promising the Germans a 
flag and a fleet, flattered himself to avert 
from his own guilty head the revenge of 
his exasperated subjects for the horrible 
slaughters in his own capital. 

We shall now carry our readers to the 
shores of the Baltic, and going back to the 
remote ages of feudality and chivalry, trace 
the origin and progress of the protracted 
struggle between German and Scandina- 
vian nationality, and then terminate this 



essay with a picture of the present war, 
faithfully drawn up from authentic sources, 
and direct communications both from Den- 
mark and Germany, 



The peninsula of Jutland, known by 
the ancient Romans as the Chersonesus 
Cimbrica, is bounded on the east by the 
Kattegat, the little Belt, and the Baltic ; 
and on the west by the North Sea. It is 
divided from Germany by the river Eyder, 
and extending northward for two hundred 
and seventy miles, terminates at the low 
headland of Skagen. Its breadth from 
east to west is from thirty to ninety miles. 
The middle part of this low peninsula, 
nearly in its full length, consists of dreary 
heaths and moors, intermixed here and 
there with some patches of arable lands 
and good pastures for cattle and flocks of 
sheep and goats. The northwestern coasts 
are low, sandy, and full of dangerous shoals. 
The violent west wind, sweeping across 
that inhospitable region, impedes the 
growth of forest trees, and renders the 
climate damp, cold, and disagreeable 
throughout the year. Farther south, in 
Schleswig, the western coast consists of 
meadow lands, [marskland,) which offer 
rich pastures, and are defended by dikes 
against the swell of the North Sea. Quite 
different is the character of the eastern 
part of the country. The shores of the 
Baltic and Kattegat are hio-h and often 
covered with fine forests. They sometimes 
present romantic and picturesque scenery 
from the many deep indentations of the sea, 
called fjorde, or friths, which for miles run 
into the land, where they expand into exten- 
sive sheets of water, and are bordered by 
beautiful oak and beech woods ascending 
gradually to the tops of the hills. The 
largest frith is the Liim-Fjord, running 
across the whole breadth of Jutland from 
the Kattegat to the North Sea, and making 
the northern part of it an island.* Its 
banks are bleak and dreary ; the dark 
forests M'hich in the tenth and eleventh 
centuries covered that hilly region, now 
only remain in Sailing Land, a small, beau- 

* The North Sea broke through the Ioav, sandy 
coast near Lemvig, a few years ago, and united 
with the Liim-Fjord by a breach, through which 
now small vessels can pass. 



For the Possession of Schlesivig. 



tiful tract, well cultivated, and inhabited 
by a rich and laborious yeomanry. The 
lands on the eastern coast are very fertile 
for several miles in the interior, and pro- 
duce an abundance of rye, wheat, barley, 
oats, beans, pease, rape-seed, and excellent 
pulse and fruits. In many parts the 
heaths are broken up and converted into 
arable lands, agriculture being highly en- 
couraged by the Danish government. Still 
the raising of cattle and horses supplies 
the principal revenue of Jutland. The 
huge oxen are driven to the rich meadow- 
lands of Holstein, where they are fattened 
and afterwards sold in Hamburg and Ber- 
lin. In later years large exportations 
of oxen are made by sea to France and 
England. The horses of Jutland and Hol- 
stein are strong, large, well-formed, and 
eminently fitted for war. 

Jutland is, by the small rivers Skod- 
borg-aa and Konge-aa, divided into North 
Jutland, containing 9,500 square miles, and 
South Jutland, or Schleswig, 2,624 square 
miles. The latter province is more fertile 
and better cultivated. Here the geest or 
arable lands from the broken-up heaths 
amount to 700 square miles, the meadow- 
lands 320, the forests 112, the moors 224, 
and the barren heaths 450. North Jut- 
land has twelve more or less considerable 
towns, and 550,000 inhabitants. Schles- 
' wig possesses six towns, among which are 
the beautiful and well-built Schleswig, 
standing in a pleasant and picturesque sit- 
uation on the Schley, and the lively com- 
mercial town of Flensborg ; the province 
containing 350,000 inhabitants. Schleswig 
is bounded on the south by the German 
duchy of Holstein, extending seventy 
miles from the Baltic to the North Sea, and 
forty-eight miles from the Eyder on the 
north, to the Elbe and the duchy of Lau- 
enborg on the south. It contains 2,528 
square miles, with 440,000 inhabitants. 
Holstein is thus of smaller extent than 
Schleswig, but more productive and better 
cultivated, and has a larger population. 
The Jutlander and the Schlcswiger are 
both of Scandinavian origin, and the mass 
of the people have nearly the same gene- 
ral character, manners, and customs, ex- 
cept the greater liveliness and elasticity, 
which the Schleswiger has acquired by his 
intercourse and intermixtuie with the 
Germans. The Jutlanders are no longer 
the bold and daring rovers, who with the 



other Northmen, on their prancing sea- 
horses, made the shores of Germany, 
France and England tremble at their ap- 
proach. They ai-e still a brave, but a 
peaceful and quiet people ; they are labo- 
rious and persevering, but extremely slow 
and somewhat awkward in their manners. 
They are hospitable and cheerful with their 
countrymen, but cold and retired towards 
foreigners, with whom they have but little 
intercourse in their far-off and dreary 
country. They are more fond of ease than 
of show ; and consequently the people in 
Jutland are more comfortable than the 
careless inhabitants of the sunny south. 
They are accustomed to substantial food, 
and make five meals a day; they are more 
economical than industrious, and do not 
know or regret the refinements of foreio-u 
countries. They are judicious observers 
and profound thinkers. They speak very 
slowly, with a harsh and inharmonious pro- 
nunciation, and are by their countrymen 
on the Danish islands considered cunninrr 
in calculating their own profit ; the proverb 
is, " as sharp as a Jute." They are en- 
dued with imagination, and possess tender 
and beautiful national songs in their own 
dialect. Though they are patient and 
enduring, they can be roiised to the high- 
est pitch of enthusiasm. They are strongly 
attached to their king and country, but 
care nothing about politics or newspapers, 
having been for centuries accustomed to 
the dull calm of an absolute government ; 
and yet they possess an independent feel- 
ing of their own, and Avill not submit to 
harb.h or arbitrary treatment from their su- 
periors. The country people are generally 
middle-sized, short, fair-haired, of a gentle 
and agreeable physiognomy ; their women 
are pretty, with blue eyes and rosy cheeks, 
but as clumsy as their helpmates, clatter- 
ing along on wooden shoes. 

This short sketch gives an idea of the peo- 
ple and country in times past ; the eventful 
movements of late years have of course, in 
some degree, exerted their influence even as 
far as the distant shores of the Liim-Fjord. 
In South Jutland, both the Danish and 
Low German (Plat-tydske) dialects are in 
use. In 1837, Danish was spoken unmix- 
ed in 116 parishes, with 113,256 inhabi- 
tants ; in these districts Danish is the 
language used not only in common inter- 
course, but both in the churches and 
schools. In 36 parishes, with 45,460 in- 



Wars between the Danes and Germans, 



habitants, that language is generally 
spoken, but the German is employed in 
the churches and schools. Danish is like- 
wise spoken and understood in Tondern, 
Flensborg, and the dioceses of Gottorp 
and Bredsted, with 36,000 souls ; so that 
Danish is still the mother tongue for 
194, 700 Schleswigers among the 350,000 
which inhabit the duchy, thus forming a 
decided majority. 

Quite different is the deportment and 
character of the Holsteiner. He is tall 
and handsome, with auburn hair. He is 
economical and industrious, like the Hol- 
lander ; active and dexterous, ambitious 
and quarrelsome. He is arbitrary and 
imperious ; witty, lively, but proud and 
overbearing toward his inferiors. He is 
full of talent and capacity, but boastful, 
grandiloquent and selfish. The Holstein 
cultivators own their lands and are a 
laborious, brave and intelligent people. 
Their farms are exceedingly well kept, and 
comfort and wealth are seen everywhere, 
^lie Holstein mariner is clever, bold and en- 
during, and sings his national German songs 
with the livehness and spirit of an Italian. 

Such is the character of the soil and 
the inhabitants of these three interest- 
ing provinces of the Danish monarchy. 



Tlie whole peninsula was in the remotest 
times of the middle ages inhabited by 
Jutes, Angles and Saxons. After the 
maritime expeditions of the two latter 
ti'ibes to Britain, towards the middle of the 
fifth century of our era. Jutes and Frisians 
began to settle in the abandoned districts 
of Angeln or South Jutland, north of the 
Eyder ; while large swarms of Vendes, 
Obotrites, and other western tribes of the 
Slavonic nation, occupied the eastern 
coasts of Nordalbingia or Holstein, the 
seat of the Saxons on the Elbe. In the 
eighth century Denmark did not yet form 
a united kingdom ; different sea-kings 
ruled on the islands of the Baltic. God- 
fred, the king of Reit-Gothland or Jut- 
land, advanced on the Eyder, where he 
erected the celebrated wall or mound of 
earth and stones called the Dannevirke 
across the peninsula from the bay of the river 
Schley, [Slias-wylc or Schleswig,) westward 
to the North Eyder, to protect his Scan- 
dinavian dominions from the inroads of the 
conquering Franks of Charlemagne, at that 



time, A. D. 810, occupied in the conver- 
sion and subjugation of the Saxons. The 
Frankish emperor being continually har- 
assed by the fleets and armed bands of 
the Northmen on the coasts of Friesland, 
and at the mouth of the Elbe, founded the 
strong castle of Hamaburg (Hamburg) on 
its northern bank, and afterwards concluded 
a tr.eaty with the successor of Godfred, 
Hemming, according to which the Eyder 
should form the boundary between Den- 
mark and the Fiankish empire, and the 
Danes abandon all their conquests south 
of that river. 

Towards the close of the ninth cen- 
tury the Danish king, Gorm the Old, at 
last succeeded in uniting the small inde- 
pendent states of the islands, and the main 
land of Jutland and Scania, [Skaane,) in 
Southern Sweden, into a powerful king- 
dom. He crossed the Eyder ; but enter- 
ing into Nordalbingia, then a province of 
the duchy of Saxony, his career of con- 
quest was arrested. The German king, 
Henry I. the Fowler, with his German 
chivalry, defeated the wild Northmen and 
established the march or margraviate of 
Schleswig, between the Eyder and the 
Schley — the limes Danicus, as it is called 
by the chroniclers, which now for nearly 
a century remained the battle-ground of 
the hostile Danish and Saxon borderers 
during their continual devastating forays.* 
But Canute the Great, during his inter- 
view with the German emperor Conrad 
the Salian, in Rome, in the year 1027, ob- 
tained the cession of this district, and thus 
the limits of Denmark were restored such 
as they had been in the time of Charle- 
magne. | The Saxon march, once more 



* This German settlement beyond the Eyder 
is very doubtful. Some chroniclers ascribe it to 
Charlemagne ; others with more probability to 
the Saxon Henry the Fowler (919—936.) Harald 
Klak, a petty king of South Jutland, had been 
converted to Christianity so early as A. D. 826. 
The intrepid missionary of the North, Anscharius, 
built the first chm-ch in Schleswig at that time, 
and sowed the first seed of Christian piety and 
love among the wild worshippers of Odin and 
Freya. 

f The existence of this treaty between the Ro- 
man Emperor and the King of Denmark is con- 
firmed by a very ancient inscription : Eidora 
Romani terminus imperii, which for centuries 
stood over the Old Holstein Gate of Rendsborg. 
Tlais town was at that time the border fortress of 
Denmai-k, who possessed all the tolls and duties 



For the Possession of Sckkswig. 



incorporated witli the rest of South Jut- 
land, remained in immediate dependence 
upon the crown of Denmark. In this 
whole period we find that the South Jutes 
or Schleswigers had their language, laws, 
and customs in common with their north- 
em brethren, the Islanders and the [Sko- 
ningers or Danish inhabitants of Scania. 
The ancient division of the provinces into 
districts or shires, called Herreder and 
Sysler, and the genuine Scandinavian 
names of towns, villaofes and natural 
scenery, down to the very banks of the 
Eyder, give the most evident proof of the 
Danish nationality of the South Jutes. 

Yet the wars with the Slavonic and 
Germanic tribes, rendered it necessary for 
the kings of Denmark to place a powerful 
commander in the border province, who, 
possessed of more independence and a 
strong army, might better secure the 
Danish frontiers towards Saxony. The 
noble-minded Knud Lavard, the son of 
King Erik the Good, was thus proclaimed 
the first duke (dux or Hertug) of South 
Jutland in 1102, and took up his resi- 
dence in Hedeby (Schleswig) on the 
Schley, which had been erected into an 
episcopal see. Crossing the Eyder, Duke 
EjQud, in many arduous expeditions, van- 
quished and converted the heathen Vagri- 
ans, Obotrites, and Vendes ; he extended 
his conquests as far as Pomerania, and 
forced the German Dukes of Saxony and 
Holstein to recognize his rights over Vend- 
land. 

Holzatia (woody Saxoiiy) formed a part 
of the duchy of Saxony, belonging to 
the warlike house of Billungen, and con- 
sisted of Holstein Proper, Stormarn and 
the western district of the Ditmarskers. 
In the year 1106, after the extinction of 
that family, the Emperor Lothaire erected 
Holstein into a county, with which he in- 
vested Count Adolpli of Schauenborg, a 
castle on the Weser, as a fief dependent on 
the German Empire. The Holstein counts 
now assisted Knud Lavard in the reduction 
of the wild Slavonic tribes on the eastern 
coast ; new settlers from Germany and 

on the river. In the fourteenth century, Rends- 
borg was ceded to the Counts of Schauenborg. 
The Latin inscription was taken down from the 
gate in 1S06, on the dissolution of the German 
Empire, and is now deposited in the Eoyal Artil- 
lery Arsenal of the fortress. 



Holland were invited into the country, a 
bishopric was established in LUbeck, and 
the brave duke proclaimed king of the 
Obotrites. Yet this sudden accession of 
power kindled the jealousy of King Niels 
of Denmark, who considered the enterpris- 
ing duke of the border province a danger- 
ous competitor for the crown. He ordered 
Knud Lavard to his court at Roeskilde in 
Zealand, where that excellent and unsus- 
pecting chief was waylaid in a wood by 
Magnus, the prince royal, and assassinated, 
in the year 1129. 

During the following reigns of Valdemar 
I., the son of Knud Lavard, and Knud VI., 
the Danish power became formidable and 
threatening to all their neighbors. King 
Valdemar II., the Victorious, conquered 
the county of Holstein, which by a treaty, 
in 1214, with the German Emperor Frie- 
derich II., of Hohenstaufen, was incorpora- 
ted with Denmark. He extended his 
feudal possessions in Pomerania, and even 
attacked the distant Esthonia, where the 
Danish crusaders, with the cross and the 
sword, introduced Christianity among the 
Slavonians, and swept the Baltic with their 
numerous fleets. During this period of 
seventy years (1157-122Y) of victories 
and conquests, the external dominion of 
Denmark was raised to a higher splendor 
than it had ever attained since the reign 
of Canute the Great. The Danes were 
the ruling nation of the North ; but their 
chivalrous conquests were soon to be lost 
by one of those sudden turns of fortune 
which are characteristic of those tm-bu- 
lent times of the middle ages. King Val- 
demar, while hunting with his son on the 
island of LyOe, was taken prisoner by his 
vassal. Count Henry of Schwerin, and, 
confined in a castle in Mecklenburg, until 
he by treaty ceded all the conquered ter- 
ritories between the Elbe and the Eyder, 
including the county of Holstein, Vagrien, 
and the whole duchy of Pomerania. The 
king, on his return to Denmark, immedi- 
ately assembled a large array and crossed 
the Eyder. But a powerful confederacy 
had been formed against him, between the 
counts of Holstein and Schwerin, the free 
cities of Hamburg and Ltibeck, and the 
primate of Bremen. In the bloody battle 
at Bornhoved, near Segeberg in Holstein' 
on the 22d of June, 1227, King Valdemar 
suffered a total defeat, and was forced to 



Wars between the Danes and Germans, 



give up all his pretensions to the countries 
south of the Eyder. 

Valdemar II. died 1241, and the subse- 
quent civil war, which broke out among 
the pretenders to the crown, brought 
Denmark to the very brink of destruction. 
This principal cause of such a rapid de- 
cline, was not only to be ascribed to the 
haughty bearing and dangerous influence 
of the rich and proud Catholic clergy and 
feudal nobility, mostly of German origin, 
who had received fiefs in the kingdom, 
but particularly to the pernicious practice 
at that time, of investing the royal princes, 
or other relatives of the kings, with the 
duchy of South Jutland, {ducatus Tutice,) 
as a fief dependent on the Danish crown. 
Abel, the younger son of Valdemar, who 
had been invested with the duchy of 
Schleswig, laid claim to this province, 
as a free and independent patrimonial in- 
heritance against his elder brother. King 
Erich Ploughpenning. Abel was defeat- 
ed, and forced to receive the investiture 
of the duchy as a personal fief, not heredi- 
tary ; but he took revenge against his 
brother, by the assassination of the latter 
on the Schley in 1250. The civil dissen- 
sions between the Kings of Denmark and 
their powerful vassals, the Dukes of South 
Jutland, who contended either for inde- 
pendent dominion or hereditary tenure, 
continued nearly without interruption ; but 
though they often received aid from the 
German counts of Holstein, beyond the 
Eyder, they never succeeded in accom- 
plishing their object. 

The most distinguished of all the Hol- 
stein counts, Gerhard the Great, of Rends- 
borg, assumed, on the death of Duke 
Erich of South Jutland, the guardianship 
of his young son Valdemar, in opposition 
to the demands of his uncle, King Christo- 
pher II. of Denmark, who laid claim to 
that riofht. The kino- at the head of a 
brilliant feudal army, entered the duchy 
and occupied the castle of Schleswig ; but 
he shortly afterward suff'ered a signal de- 
feat by the Holstein count on the Heste- 
berg ; in consequence of which the Danes 
evacuated the duchy and retreated to 
North Jutland. The nobility of the king- 
dom, being disgusted with Christopher, 
expelled him from the country, and, yield- 
ing to the intrigues of Count Gerhard, 
called his ward, the young Valdemar 
Erikson, to the throne, and elected the 



ambitious Holsteiner administrator of the 
kingdom, during the minority of the 
prince. In return for these good offices 
of his powerful uncle, Valdemar, who, at 
that time, (1326,) was only twelve years 
of age, bestowed the whole duchy of 
South Jutland upon Count Gerhard as a 
hereditary fief, and, according to the Hol- 
stein historians, signed an important act in 
Lubeck, by which he declared Schleswig 
and Holstein to be eternally imited, and 
bound himself never to reclaim the duchy, 
or reunite it with the crown of Denmark. 

Thus Ave have arrived at the first union 
of these two provinces, in the year 1326. 
But it is fully evident from whatsoever 
point we view the subject, that this act 
was without legality, and did not create 
those rights, which the haughty counts of 
Holstein inferred from it. The guardian 
could not lawfully accept a grant of his 
own ward under age, the validity of which 
he had to confirm himself. Nor could a 
prince, chosen by a party of dissatisfied 
nobles, dispose of an integral part of the 
kingdom, quite contrary to the capitula- 
tion of rights [Haandfcestning) which his 
ffuardian had signed in his name, and 
without consent of the general elective 
Diet of the kingdom — the Dannehqf. 
Duke Valdemar was never crowned king 
of Denmark ; he is not numbered among 
the monarchs of that country, and was 
shortly afterwards forced to give up all 
his pretensions and retire to Schleswig. 

The Holstein historians pretend that 
this document — this magna charta of 
"Schleswig-Holstein," which they call 
the Comlitutio Valdemariana, forms the 
very basis in the dispute between the 
kings of Denmark and their German sub- 
jects in the duchies, by the guaranty 
which it is supposed to give to the in- 
separability of the two provinces. But it 
is a highly remarkable fact that the exist- 
ence of this document never has be^ 
proved ; no copy of it has ever been 
found, and it may, therefore, with good 
ground, be considered as altogether apocry- 
phal. No mention whatever is made of 
it in the original capitulation of Prince 
Valdemar, nor in the letter of feoffment, 
which Count Gerhard received in 1326, 
by which the Danish Council of State 
(Rigsraad) confirmed the investiture of 
South Jutland as a simple banner-fief 
[Fanekhn) of the Danish crown. Suppos- 



For the Possession of Schkswig, 



ing even that such a document had existed, 
yet it remained without any influence on 
the rehitions of the kingdom ; no reference 
was ever made to it by the Holstein 
Counts during their disputes with Den- 
mark at that time, and the dukes of South 
Juthind continued to recognize the kings 
of Denmark as their hxwful hege-lords. 
Yet we shall presently see an attempt of 
the Holsteiners to re-establish this imagi- 
nary constitution of Valdemar the Minor, 
in the concessions of Count Christian of 
Oldenborg, to his uncle, Count Adolph of 
Holstein, in 1448, on which they, at the 
present day, build all their pretensions to 
their right of a "Schleswig-Holstein union." 
Christopher 11. , in the mean time, re- 
turned from his retreat in Mecklenburg, 
and the Danes flocked round him with 
hopes to escape from German oppression. 
He regained his crown, and young Valde- 
mar Erikson, renouncing his ephemeral 
dignity, returned to his duchy of South 
Jutland, which Count Gerhard surrender- 
ed to him. But the weak and despicable 
Christopher II., encompassed by enemies 
on all sides, not only recognized the suc- 
cession of the Counts of Schauenborg to 
the Danish banner-fief of South Jutland, 
in case of the death of Valdemar without 
male heirs, but, in his pecuniary distress, 
mortgaged the whole of North Jutland to 
Count Gerhard for a sum of money, and 
the islands to Count John of Itzehoe. 
These chieftains immediately occupied the 
Danish provinces thus surrendered to 
them, with their wild bands of German 
hirelings and adventurers. Poor, dis- 
tracted Denmark had never found herself 
in greater distress. Her prelates and 
nobles fawned on the high-plumed foreign- 
ers ; her industrious citizens and brave 
yeomanry were ahke oppressed by their 
countrymen and enemies, and treated as 
if they were serfs. Her nationality seem- 
ed on the point of perishing beneath that 
of the Germans ; her political power was 
on the eve of a total dissolution. King 
Christopher died broken-hearted on the 
Island of Falster in 1333 ; the province of 
Scania rose in arms, slaughtered the Ger- 
man condotlieri, and united with Sweden. 
Yet the Holsteiners, with their active and 
ambitious chief. Count Gerhard, one of the 
greatest warriors of the age, still possess- 
ed all the mainland. Attempts at insur- 
rection were made, but the Danes were 



routed in every battle. Otho, the prince 
royal, defeated near Viborg, was carried a 
prisoner to the gloomy castle of Segeberg 
in Holstein. Valdemar, his younger bro- 
ther, lived an exile at the court of Bran- 
denbui'g. The cruelty and exactions of 
the foreign soldiery now became insup- 
portable ; even the good-natured Jutes at 
last were roused to resistance, when Count 
Gerhard, at the head of ten thousand Ger- 
mans, began devastating that unhappy 
country with fire and sword. But the hour 
of retribution had arrived. The Danish 
knight, Niels Ebbesen of Norreriis, on the 
18h of March, 1340, with sixty daring fol- 
lowerSj'eiltered the castle of Randers, and 
slew the count in the midst of his numer- 
ous mercenaries. Piince Valdemar Chris- 
topherson now returned from Germany, 
and succeeded by his prudence, persever- 
ance, and eminent political talents, in re- 
deeming nearly all the alienated and mort- 
gaged provinces of the kingdom. He was 
less successfid in his exertions to recover 
South Jutland. The male line of Abel's 
descendants became extinct in 13Y5. 
The old wary King Valdemar III. had 
foreseen this important event, and a Dan- 
ish army immediately entered the duchy 
and occupied its principal towns. But 
the Holstein Count, Iron- Henry, the chival- 
rous son of the great Gerhard, was still 
more prompt. He took possession of the 
castle of Gottorp and was attacking the 
Danes, when the news of the death of 
King Valdemar, at Vordingborg in Zea- 
land, again suspended the war. His noble- 
minded daughter, Margaretha, the Semira- 
mis of the North, ofoverned the king-doms 
of Denmark and Norway in the name of 
her son Oluf Hakonson, and being pressed 
by a disastrous war with the overbearing 
Hanseatic confederation, and desiring the 
aid of the Counts of Holstein, she, at 
an assembly of the Danish nobility, at 
Nyborg, in 1380, bestowed upon tl>e 
Count Gerhard of Rendsborg, t^e son ©f 
Iron-Henry, the much disputed duchy of 
South Jutland, as a banner-fief of the Dan- 
ish ci-own, to remain indivisible in the 
hands of onl}^ one of the counts, Avho, as 
a Danish vassal, had to perform the usual 
feudal military service to his liege-lord. 
The act did not expressly state whether 
the fief was pei-sonal or hereditary ; and 
the Danish kings demanded the repetition of 
the oath of allegiance at every succession. 



Wars between the Danes and Germans, 



This sacrifice of the most beautiful 
province of the kingdom had been forced 
on the queen by the internal distraction 
and political weakness of Denmark ; and 
although she afterwards succeeded in 
placing the crowns of the three Scandina- 
vian nations on her head by the celebrated 
Calmarian union in 1396, yet the favorite 
scheme of her life was the reunion of the 
duchy of South Jutland with the kingdom 
of Denmark. Circumstances seemed in 
her favor. The warlike Duke Gerhard, the 
first who assumed the title of Duke of 
Schleswig, had perished in battle against 
the Ditmarskers, in 1404. His sons Henry, 
Adolph and Gerhard, were minors, and 
the youngest still unborn. 

Queen Margaretha, by her consummate 
skill in employing persuasion and force 
alternately, might perhaps have seen her 
exertions crowned with success ; but her 
death in 1412, and the violence and indis- 
cretion of her unworthy nephew, Erik of 
Pomerania, who inherited her triple crown, 
kindled a most bloody and untoward 
twenty years' war with the young dukes, 
which fill the most disgraceful pages in 
the annals of D'enmark. Though Erik 
disposed of the united armies and fleets of 
the whole north, that dastard and indolent 
king was foiled in every attempt to repos- 
sess himself of Schleswig. In 1420, a 
Danish army of nearly a hundred thou- 
sand men suffered a terrible defeat at Im- 
mervad ; and Flensborg, the only city still 
occupied by the king, was on the point of 
surrendering to the gallant Duke Henry, 
and his Hanseatic allies, when both the 
contending parties were invited to appear 
before the throne of the German Emperor 
Sigismund, who offered himself as umpire 
in this odious dispute. King Erik at 
once accepted the invitation, and departed 
for Germany. The young Counts of Hol- 
stein, on the conti'arj^ preferred the prose- 
cution of the war, until at last Henry, 
yielding to the exhortations of the clergy, 
presented himself at the Imperial Court 
at Buda in Hungary, in 1424. Here he 
found a splendid assembly of German 
princes and Madjar magnates, as assessors, 
attending on the decision of the emperor. 
King Erik and his Danish nobles, sure of 
gaining their cause, had already left Hun- 
gary, and undertaken a pilgrimage to the 
Holy Land. 



It is very interesting to observe the same 
uncertainty about the relations between 
the duchies and Denmark, in the writings 
of the historians of the fifteenth century, 
as among the diplomatists and politicians 
of the present day. It appears, never- 
theless, that the principal point in dispute 
on the part of the vassals at that time 
Vfas their refusal to render feudal homage 
and military aid to their liege-lord. How- 
ever .this might have been, certain it is, 
that when the imperial umpire demanded 
the production of all the former documents 
and acts of feoffment, setting forth the 
claims of the Counts of Holstein to the 
duchy, Henry of Schauenborg could only 
refer to the vague expressions of the act of 
1386 and point to his good sword for the 
rest of the evidence. The imperial sen- 
tence was pronounced on the 28th of Jvme, 
1424, according to which the emperor, as 
the chosen umpire of both parties, having 
consulted the prelates, knights, professors 
and lawyers of the Roman Empire, re- 
solved : " that the whole of South Jutland 
with the city of Schleswig, the castle of 
Gottoi'p and other towns, the Danish 
wood {Danisch Wold,) the island of Als, 
and the coast district of the Friesians, with 
all rights and privileges, had ever belonged 
to the king and kingdom of Denmark ; 
likewise that the Counts Henry, Adolph 
and Gerhard, neither had possessed nor did 
possess any hereditary right to the duchy." 
By that sentence, the constitution of Duke 
Valdemar of 1326, if ever it had ex- 
isted, was then declared invalid, and 
Schleswig was pronounced an appurte- 
nance of the Danish realm. Henry, in- 
dignant at the apparent injustice of the 
imperial decision, solemnly protested, and 
appealed to the Pope. But Martin V., 
feeling himself in a difficult position be- 
tween the council of Constanz and the 
Emperor, and intimidated by a missive 
from the latter, in which he advised him to 
confine his attention to ecclesiastical affairs, 
contented himself with exhorting the 
Counts of Holstein to pious submission, and 
to peace with Denmark, 

Both parties then returned to the north, 
and the war in Schleswig was carried on 
with renewed strength. In 1427, Count 
Henry fell before Flensborg; but his warlike 
brother Adolph contimied the contest with 
extraordinary energy and success. Ham- 



For the Possession of Schkswig. 



burg, Liibeck and other powerful Hanseatic 
cities, supporting Holstein with their fleets, 
desolated the coasts of Denmark, and ru- 
ined her commerce. The greatest dissat- 
isfaction with the incapacity of the king 
prevailed throughout the kingdoms of the 
Calmarian union. Erik was deposed, and 
the first act of his successor, Christopher 
the Bavarian, was the recognition of the 
hereditary rights of the house of Schauen- 
borg to the duchy of Schleswig. At the 
Danish diet in Colding, in 1439, the Duke 
Adolph, kneeling down before his liege- 
lord, on his throne, surrounded by the 
coui't and nobiUty, took the oath of alle- 
giance, and received from the hand of the 
king the banner of investitiu'e. 

The Calmarian union still existed, but it 
had become a mere phantom ; the arro- 
gance of the prelates and nobles, the sub- 
jection of the people, and the total want of 
political liberty and public opinion in that 
age of ignorance and oppression, did not 
permit the development of a confederacy 
among the Scandinavian nations, which 
otherwise would have promoted their civ- 
ilization, happiness, and power. Denmark 
had not gained by her doubtful union with 
Sweden ; she felt the more deeply her re- 
cent loss, and all her eflforts tended towards 
the recovery of her alienated possessions 
on the main land. The Danish nobility, in 
compliance with this feeling, after the 
sudden death of King Christopher the Ba- 
varian, in 1448, sent a deputation to Duke 
Adolph of Schleswig-Holstein, to offer 
him the crown of Denmark. The Duke 
was at the time only forty -five years of 
age ; but being without children, and pre- 
ferring the quiet retirement of his present 
position, to the cares and vicissitudes 
awaiting him on the throne of the warring 
kingdoms, he declined the proffered honor, 
but directed the attention of the Danes to 
his young sister's son, Count Christian of 
Oldenborg, whom he himself had educated 
and tenderly loved. Count Christian ac- 
cepted the crown, and became the founder 
of the present dynasty of Denmark, in the 
year 1448. 

Eleven years after this event, 1459, 
Adolph of Schleswig-Holstein died. His 
elder brother, Henry, had lived unmarried, 
and perished in his thirtieth year; the 
younger, Gerhard, died suddenly on the 
Rhine, in 1433, without legitimate issue. 
Thus the house of the Counts of Schau- 



enborg-Rendsborg became extinct, and the 
duchy of Schleswig of course escheated to 
the crown of Denmark, which the king 
ought immediately to have taken possession 
of. The county of Holstein, on the con- 
trary, being a German fief, apparently 
devolved on the nearest agnate heirs of 
the lateral line of Schauenborg-Pinneberg, 
who already, in the year 1396, by a treaty, 
had secured its succession. The princes 
of the family of Oldenborg, however, 
were more nearly related to the defunct 
Count of Holstein than the house of Schau- 
enborg-Pinneberg, but only as coynates. 
Some historians, in defence of such direct 
rights of King Christian to the succession 
of Holstein, mention that several instances 
were on record in the German states of 
that time, where the merely cognate heirs 
inherited. Thus a contemporary chroni- 
cler of Lubec, who continues the chronicle 
of Detmar from 1401 to 1472, and whose 
work, even by the historians of Holstein 
themselves, is pronounced to be of the 
highest authority, says, " that the nobles 
of Holstein rejected altogether this plea 
of a family compact between the two lines 
of the house of Schauenborsj, as the coun- 
cil of the land had never sanctioned or 
confirmed it ; and with regard to the in- 
heritance of the Holstein fief, they recog- 
nized that King Christian and his brothers 
were nearer in respect to the succession, 
than the more distant Westphalian branch 
of the house of Schauenborg-Pinneberg, 
as they were sister's children of Count 
Adolph, and in their land, the female line 
(Spindle-side) might inherit as well as 
the male line (Sword-side)." A distinc- 
tion seems thus to have existed in the suc- 
cession between the great or banner-fiefs, 
{Jeuda vexilli, Fanelehn,) and the minor 
fiefs of the German Empire ; inasmuch 
as in the former the inheritance was limit- 
ed to male keirs, while in the latter \he fe- 
male line partook of the same right. Hol- 
stein, being originally a dependent fief of 
the duchy of Saxony, and not a feudum 
vexilli of the Empire, the direct right of 
King Christian to the succession of this 
duchy might have been justly insisted 
upon at the time ; which goes directly 
against the late assertion of Prussia with 
regard to both duchies, " that only the 
agnates were admitted to the inheritance." 
The great question, however, as to whe- 
ther Schleswig, an ancient and important 



10 



Wars between the Danes and Germans, 



province of Denmark, should, be at last in- 
corporated with the kingdom and separated 
from Holstein, or again become imited with 
the latter, by a new investiture of the king, 
was now to be determined. But a new 
difficulty had unexpectedly been created 
by the fact that the Duke Adolph, 
moved perhaps by his old rancor towards 
Denmark, against whom he had spent his 
youth in hard fighting, and still more by 
his natural desire to preserve the close 
union of his two beautiful states, had per- 
suaded his young nephew, Christian of 
Oldenborg, when the crown of Denmark 
was offered to him in 1448, to renounce his 
right to Schleswig, and to promise that, 
according to the constitutio Valdemariana, 
the duchy of Schleswig and the kingdom of 
Denmarknever should be united again under 
the same sceptre, and that the duchy of 
Schleswig-Holstein should remain forever 
and ever undivided — ewich tosammend 
ungedelt. 

This curious Low German document of 
Count Christian of Oldenborg is dated 2Sth 
of June, 1448, more than a year before his 
coronation at Copenhagen as King of Den- 
mark on the 28th October, 1449. It had no 
validity, because Count Christian could not 
give away any territory or rights of the 
kingdom of Denmark, the crown of which 
he did not wear ; nay, he could not even do 
so after he had been crowned kmg, except 
with the consent of the states in a general 
daimehof or diet. This renunciation and 
promise of the young Count may therefore 
be considered null and void. 

We said that Christian, as a cognate 
heir, had lie right to the succession in Hol- 
stein in 1459. His ambition however in- 
cited him to go any length in order to 
acquire both the estates, Holstein as well 
as Schleswig, and to unite both with the 
kingdom in spite of his own renunciation 
of 1448. Instead, therefore, of drawing 
in the escheated fief of Schleswig, and in- 
corporating it wj^h Desmark, he did not 
enforce that right, but simply offered him- 
self as a candidate for the free election of 
the Schleswig and Holstein nobility. Thus 
he placed himself on a level with the indi- 
gent counts of Schauenborg-Pinneberg, well 
knowing that the large sums he had by 
underhand means distributed amono- the 
avaricious prelates and nobles, and the 
powerful influence of the family of Rant- 
zau, would procui'e him the majority of 



the votes. In this manner King Christian 
gained his object, but not withoiit great 
sacrifices, which through his whole reign 
pressed hard on the kingdom of Denmark. 
He settled his patrimonial counties of Ol- 
denborg and Delmenhorst on his younger 
brother, with forty thousand florins. The 
Counts of Schauejiborg received an indem- 
nification of four hundred and thirty thou- 
sand florins, the county of Pinneberg, 
and several other possessions. The pre- 
lates and nobles secured their most exten- 
sive privileges, throwing all the burdens of 
the commonwealth on the more numerous 
and industrious classes of the citizens and 
peasants. On his actual election to the 
duchies he declared by a charter of rights 
[HaandfcEstning) dated the 5th of March, 
1460, which the Holstein historians con- 
sider as a renewal of the Valdemarian Con- 
stitution, that the estates of Schleswig and 
Holstein were to remain inseparable ; that 
they had of their own free will, without 
any regard to his being King of Denmark, 
chosen him for their Duke and Count, that 
they likewise after his death were entitled 
to elect his successor from among his chil- 
dren, or in case of his having no issue, from 
among his lawful heirs, and that if he should 
leave but one son to succeed him on the 
throne of Denmark, the estates should have 
the right to choose some other chief, pro- 
vided only he were of the kin and lineage 
of the deceased. 

The future position of Schleswig for 
several centuries was now decided. A few 
years later, in 1474, Holstein was erected 
into a duchy, and though Schleswig remain- 
ed a Danish fief, which did not belong to the 
empire, it now entered by its relation to Hol- 
stein into a more intimate intercourse wnth 
Germany. The mass of the people still 
spoke Danish, as they do to this day, but the 
all-powerful nobility, by intermarriages in 
the sister duchy, and the clergy, by the 
great spiritual movement in the south, be- 
came more and more Germanized. Withia 
half a century, the diet in Schleswig began 
to be held in the Low- German dialect. In 
the times of the Reformation, the Lutheran 
translation of the Bible in the High-Ger- 
man language was still nearly unintelligi- 
ble to the great majority of the common 
people, both in Holstein and Schleswig, 
yet by the mighty influence of the Ger- 
man civilization from the south, and the 
indifference of the Oldenborg kings, who 



For the Possession of Schkswig. 



11 



themselves spoke the German at the com-t 
of Copenhagen, the Danish lost gromid, 
and the Hio-h- German at last framma the 
victory, became the language of the pul- 
pit, of the bar, and of tlie national assem- 
blies. The university of Kiel was erected in 
1665, and the young Schleswigers as well 
as the Holsteiners, having received their ed- 
ucation at that institution, extended their 
ti"avels to Germany, in order to finish their 
studies and bring German literature and 
science back to their native countries. 
Nor were the commercial relations with 
the Hanseatic confederation less influential 
in alienating the Schleswigers from their 
Danish brethren. The naval establish- 
ments [Styrishavne) of the victorious Val- 
demars, who with their Danish fleets 
subjected all the southern coasts of the 
Baltic, and extended their feudal dominion 
over Esthonia, Pomerania and Riigen, had 
gone to ruin durinar the ci^^l wars of the 

o o ^ ^ ^ ■ 

fouz'teenth century. The eighty-five cities 
of the rich and powerful Hansa had for 
nearly two centimes possessed the entire 
commerce of the Baltic and northern seas, 
and by their exclusive rights and privile- 
ges, kept the Scandinavian Idngs in the most 
abject bondage to a commercial aristoc- 
racy. Iso wonder, then, that Hamburg, 
Liibeck, and Bremen had become the 
schools and places of general resort of the 
active mariners of Schleswig and Holstein. 
Ivincr Christian I. of Oldenboro- ha\dno- 
thus, in 1460, been elected Duke of Schles- 
■n ig and Holstein, it might have been sup- 
posed that the great question about the 
duchies had at last been solved ; but most 
unhappily for the tranquillity and welfare 
of the Danish monarchy, new divisions 
followed thu-ty years later (1490) which 
at different periods, for nearly two cen- 
turies and a half, were the causes of dy- 
nastic dissensions, foreign invasions, and 
incalculable distress and misery in the 
whole monarchy. Although the crown 
of Denmark continued elective for two 
hundred years (1460—1660) after the 
accession of Christian I., it descended 
nevertheless as regularly from father to 
son, as if it had been hereditary. But in 
the duchies, where the nobihty [Ritter- 
schaft) alone formed the states, this oli- 
garchy simultaneously elected diff"erent 
descendants of the house of Oldenborg, 
and the lands thus became divisible and 
subdivisible among distinct lines of the 



dynasty, quite contrary to the spirit of the 
principle of nnity expressed in the act of 
1460, which in this manner was abolished 
de facto by the Schleswig and Holstein 
states themselves. 

Christian I. died in 1441, and left two 
sons by his Queen Dorothea — Hans, who 
was elected King of Denmark, and Fred- 
erik, at that time only ten years of age. 
The ambitious queen dowager, desiring 
her younger son, Prince Frederik, to be 
elected in the duchies, succeeded by her 
intrigues in delaying the final decision of 
the states for nine years, when at last, in 
1490, both the royal brothers were elect- 
ed, and a very remarkable division of the 
two provinces took place. Instead of de- 
claring King Hans of Denmai-k Duke of 
Schleswig, and his brother Frederik Duke 
of Holstein and vassal of the Germanic 
Empire, the states now divided both duch- 
ies between both the princes. King Hans 
obtained the northern district of Haders- 
leben, the city of Flensborg, the island of 
Als, as belonging to Schleswig, and the 
western and southern parts of Holstein, 
with Rendsborg, Gluckstad, Itzehoe, Sege- 
berg, Oldesloe and the promontory of 
Heiligenhafen, — which all formed the pos- 
sessions of the Royal or Segeberg line of 
succession. His younger brother Frederik 
united the Schleswig districts of Gottorp, 
Tondern and Apenrade, with Kiel, the 
eastern parts of Holstein and the island of 
Femern, and thus established the Ducal 
or Gottorp line. In this manner the Sege- 
berg line possessed six different districts 
of both ducliies inclosed or iirtermingled 
with the four portions belonging to that 
of Gottorp ! This most untoward sub- 
division of the two Danish and German 
fiefs, afterwards gave rise to the fatal de- 
nomination of " a duchj of Schleswig- 
Holslein," which, although a political nul- 
lity, has nevertheless been the cause of 
interminable complications and dissensions, 
and mainly contributed to the present 
unjust and iniquitous invasion of Denmark 
by the Germanic confederation. Disputes 
soon arose between the brothers ; the 
ambitious Frederik laid claims to the in- 
vestiture of fiefs in Denmark and Norway, 
which were refused by the diet, who de- 
clared that Denmark was a free and indi- 
visible elective kingdom. Such a refusal 

o 

exasperated the duke in the highest de- 
rcree. He imited with the Hanseatic cities 



12 



Wars between the Danes and Germans, 



against his brother, and taking advantage 
of the unruly spirit of the Swedes, he even 
attempted by flattery and promises to be 
elected their king. A civil war would no 
doubt have broken out with King Hans, if 
a feud against the Ditmarskers in Holstein 
had not caused the brothers to unite their 
forces against the common enemy. 

The Ditmarskers, a people of Saxon de- 
scent inhabiting a small fertile district 
between the Elbe and the Eyder, in that 
part of Holstein which faces the Western 
ocean, had during several centuries lived 
in perfect independence. They formed a 
commonwealth, which was governed by 
bailiffs and aldermen, and united by the 
love of freedom, they had maintained 
themselves in this situation against all 
aggression. At the conquest of Holstein 
by King Valdemar the Victorious, they 
followed the Danish banner ; but during 
the bloody battle of Bornhoved in 1227, 
they, by treacherously attacking the Danes 
in their rear, caused their total overthrow. 
This treachery was rewarded by the counts 
of Holstein with perfect independence, and 
although Count Gerhard afterwards at- 
tempted to subdue them, they defeated 
and slew him, foiled all subsequent in- 
vasions, and obtained from the German 
Emperor the privilege of being placed be- 
neath the protection of the archiepiscopal 
see of Bremen. Nor would those poor 
and brave herdsmen and fishermen have 
been disturbed in their tranquillity, if they 
had not, like the Swiss on the Alps, rely- 
ing on their victories, become troublesome 
aggressors on their neighbors. King Chris- 
tian I. had already resolved their reduction, 
and having represented them to the Em- 
peror Friederich III. as a set of lawless 
and unruly rovers, he received permission 
to make the conquest of their territory. 
But he died, and his sons would perhaps 
have left the Ditmarskers to themselves, if 
they had not taken an active part in the 
dispute between Duke Frederik and the 
Hanseatic cities of LUbeck and Hamburg, 
and destroyed the ducal depots and cus- 
tom-houses on the island of Helgoland. 
The king and the duke now resolved the 
war. The brilliant feudal array of Den- 
mark and the duchies assembled in Hol- 
stein during the winter of 1500, and was 
strengthened by six thousand mercenary 
Saxon lance-knechts, commanded by the 
haughty condottiere Junker Slents, who 



promised the king that he woidd take Dit- 
marsk even if it was chained to heavenitself. 
Thus the best appointed army Denmark 
had ever sent forth, consisting of thirty 
thousand combatants, advanced through 
the low marshes against the six thousand 
armed herdsmen, who in vain had de- 
manded the aid of the cities on the Elbe. 
On the 13th of February, the Danes occu- 
pied the open town of Meldorf, which had 
been abandoned, and only the aged and the 
defenceless fell victims to the wild soldiery 
of the time. But their cruelty and pre- 
sumption met with the justest chastisement. 
Animated by despair,'and resolved to perish 
in the cause of their liberty, this handful 
of people, led on by the heroic Wolf Ise- 
brand, occupied a small fort situated on 
an eminence between Meldorf and Hem- 
ingsted. The royal army had to pass on 
a narrow and swampy road, hemmed in 
on both sides by ditches and marshes. 
While the Saxon infantry advanced, they 
were received by a destructive fire from the 
batteries on the hill. They lost their com- 
mander, and falling back in disorder upon 
the Danish chivalry, they were furiously 
attacked on all sides by the light-armed 
Ditmarskers, who, on their long spears, 
with dexterity jumped over the ditches 
and began an indiscriminate slaughter on 
the defenceless flanks of the crowded col- 
umn. Three hundred and sixty nobles of 
the most distinguished families in Den- 
mark and the duchies, and more than 
fifteen thousand troops, perished on the 
battle-field. The king himself escaped 
with difficulty. The old Dannebrog, the 
Danish banner from the times of the Valde- 
mars, was lost together with all the cannon, 
arms, and an immense baggage. The Dit- 
marskers, pursuing the retreating army, 
made devastating incursions into Holstein, 
which forced the king, by the mediation of 
the Hanseatic cities, to recognize their in- 
dependence. 

King Hans died in 1513, and was suc- 
ceeded by his spirited, but violent and 
cruel son, Christian II., who immediately 
on his accession called together the states 
of Schleswig and Holstein to a general 
diet in Flensborg, in order to be elected 
duke of the royal share in the duchies. 
The states assembled ; but before they 
swore allegiance to the king, they demand- 
ed the confirmation of all their privileges 
and rights, and certain restitutions to Duke 



For the Possession of Schleswig. 



13 



Frederik, which King Hans, in 1503, had 
engaged to make to his brother. The 
young king, nourishing a deep-rooted 
hatred against the powerful nobiUty, 
whom he, as a crown prince, had already 
with the axe and the sword almost annihi- 
lated in Norway, and whose exorbitant 
privileges he intended to circumscribe in 
Denmark, refused the demands of the 
states. Serious discussions now arose ; 
and both px-elates and nobles declared that 
if the kinor did not confirm all their rio^hts 
and claims, they would immediately elect 
his uncle Frederik as their only sovereign 
duke. Chiistian II., knowing the ambition 
of that prince, and fearing the general dis- 
satisfaction in Sweden, yielded at the time ; 
he deferred his intended reforms, acknow- 
ledged the rights of the oligarchy, and 
received their homage as Duke of Schles- 
wig and Holstein. Yet the enmity be- 
tween the two princes continued, and was 
fomented by the disloyal and treacherous 
conduct of Christian towards his uncle. 
The horrible slaughter of the Swedish 
nobility in Stockholm on the 8th of No- 
vember, 1520, and the subsequent rebel- 
lion of the Danish nobles in 1523, decided 
the fate of Christian the Tyrant. He fled 
to Gennany, and Frederik, being called to 
the Danish throne, immediately took pos- 
session of all the royal castles in the duch- 
ies, which thus were united a second time. 
They remained undivided till the year 
1544 ; during which period King Chris- 
tian III., the son of Frederik I., had gov- 
erned them in the name of his younger 
brothers, Hans, Adolph, and Frederik. 
Another favorable opportunity had thus 
presented itself to the Danish Council for 
reclaiming the ancient Danish province of 
South Jutland, and by uniting it with 
Denmark, to establish anew the old Scan- 
dinavian frontier of the Eyder — or at least, 
by adopting the advice of the distinguished 
general, John de Rantzau, at once to de- 
clare the right of primogeniture in the 
duchies. This principle had at that time 
already been introduced with success into 
Bavaria and Mark-Brandenburg. But the 
Danish oligarchs, says a native historian, 
were more intent upon fortifying their 
castles and extending their farms, on buy- 
ing and selling their poor serfs, who were 
no better than slaves, than on securing the 
welfare of their king and country. The 
Council consented to another still more 



disastrous division. _ The king, and hia 
brothers Hans and Adolph, received dif- 
ferent districts both of Schleswig and Hol- 
stein, with their castles, convents and 
towns, which were denominated after the 
principal residences. The king's share 
was called that of Sonderborg. Duke 
Hans obtained Hadersleben, and Adolph, 
Gottorp. The younger brother Frederik 
became bishop of Hildersheim in 1551. 
The ducal claims to the possession of 
Hamburg and the territory of the Dit- 
marskers, and many privileges and taxes, 
remained in common ; for every one of 
the dukes possessed the full sovereignty 
in his own priucipaUty, though he recog- 
nized the emperor as his liege-lord for 
Holstein. Yet the royal brothers, on their 
presenting their homage to the king, re- 
fused to perform the usual military service 
for Schleswig as a Danish banner-fief ; act- 
ing upon the illegal pretension of the old 
dukes of South Jutland, that the duchy 
was a frank-fee exempted from every feo- 
dary duty. Years passed on in violent 
disputes, and at last, when the ceremony 
of investiture was to take place at the 
general assembly at Colding, in 1547, in 
the presence of the king, the dukes on a 
sudden refused ; a tumult ai'ose, the cere- 
mony was suspended, and the princes, 
mounting their horses, hurried off in dis- 
gust. But King Christian did not yield, 
and though he lived nearly in the same 
dissensions with his brothers as the un- 
happy Erik Plough-penning had done, 
three hxmdred years before, he still vindi- 
cated the right of the Danish crown. 

Adolph of Holstein- Gottorp, a prince of 
a hot and impetuous temper, again turned 
his arms an^ainst the courao-eous Ditmarsk- 
ers, who, ever since the terrible defeat of 
King Hans, had enjoyed uninterrupted 
possession of their independence. Chris- 
tian III., however, who wished to rule in 
tranquillity over his dominions, succ ;eded 
in preserving peace till his death in 1559. 
But his son and successor, Frederik IL, 
was more willinc: to enter into the desio-ns 
of his uncle, being afraid of his conquering 
the whole territory and keeping it to him- 
self. The king, with his Danish army, 
therefore joined the duke's, and better 
care was now taken to insure success. 
The conflict was long and bloody ; but the 
intrepidity of the Ditmarskers could not 
prevail against the mihtary knowledge and 



14 



Wars between the Danes and Germans, 



discipline of their enemies. The Danes 
were commanded by the old Count John 
Rantzau, the head of one of the noblest 
families of Holstein, to whose military tal- 
ents the house of Oldenborg was highly in- 
debted for its victories and grandeur. 
Adolph too was a prince of uncommon 
bravery and skill, who fought in the hot- 
test of the battle, and thrice rallied his 
troops, whom the desperate valor of the 
enemy had forced to give ground. After 
a violent struggle the victory declared for 
the Danes ; it was as complete and de- 
cisive as they could wish. All the towns 
and forts surrendered ; the vanquished sued 
for peace, which was granted them. They 
paid homage to the King of Denmark as 
their lawful sovereign, and took the oath 
of perpetual fidelity to him and his succes- 
sors. They paid the expenses of the war, 
and delivered up the standards and mili- 
tary trophies taken from King Hans. 

Though the victors in apparent concord 
divided the conquered territory, yet the 
dispute about the investiture of Schleswig 
still continued. As no party would yield, 
the decision of that odious question was 
referred to the Elector of Saxony, the 
Landgrave of Hesse, and the Duke of 
Mecklenburg, as umpires. In May, 1579, 
the sentence was given at the Congress of 
Odensee. Schleswig was to be considered 
as a hereditary military fief of Denmark, 
with which the king was bound to invest 
the dukes of the Oldenborg family. The 
king was to consult the dukes about ques- 
tions of war and peace, and they then 
pledged themselves to render him military 
service as their liege-lord, ^lih. forty knights 
and eighty foot-soldiers ! This ridiculous 
act was then signed by the plenipotentia- 
ries of the foreign princes, the vassals, and 
the sagacious Council of Denmark. The 
states in the duchies showed far more res- 
olution and perseverance in the mainte- 
nance of their rights. They refused in 
1563 to recognize the sovereignty of the 
Duke Hans, the younger brother of King 
Frederik II., on whom he settled the prin- 
cipality of Sonderborg, on the island of 
Als, nor did the descendants of this line 
ever succeed in obtaining the recognition of 
that dignity to this day.^' 

* The present Duke of Sonderborg- Augusten- 
borg, and his brother Prince Noer, who have taken 
arms against their cousin, King Frederik VII. of 
Denmark, are the direct offspring of that family. 



The decision of Odensee, though not 
satisfactory to Denmark, did at least settle 
two important points : the obligation on 
the part of the dukes to renew the in- 
vestiture, and the recognition of the mili- 
tary service, which though in itself insig- 
nificant, still formed the strong link between 
the duchy of Schleswig and the kingdom. 
The ceremony took place on the 3d of 
May, 1580, on the large square of Oden- 
see, where the royal throne had been erect- 
ed. The three dukes at the same time laid 
their hands on the banner of Dannebrog, 
and swore the usual allegiance to their 
liege-lord as faithful vassals. A few months 
later, the Hadersleben hne became ex- 
tinct by the death of Duke Hans the elder. 
All the possessions were now equally 
divided between Duke Adolph of Holstein- 
Gottorp and the King^ while the subdivis- 
ions which entailed so many evils on the 
duchies were put a stop to, in 1608, when 
the right of primogeniture was established 
in the ducal part, and, in 1650, extended 
to the royal province. 

Christian IV. reigned with a strong 
hand, and taught the dukes to respect 
the feudal rights of Denmark ; but tre- 
mendous events were forthcoming, which 
once more overturned the old relations, 
and at last subjected them to the de- 
cision of the sword. In 1618 the ter- 
rible thirty years' war broke out between 
the Protestant and Catholic parties in 
Germany, and King Christian IV., as 
chief of the Low-Saxon circle, entered 
Germany with his Danish aiToy. By the 
treachery of his Saxon allies he was de- 
feated in the bloody battle of Lutter am 
Baremberg, in 1626, and the imperial 
General Wallenstein, pursuing the retreat- 
ing king, overran the duchies and all the 
mainland of Denmark with his wild bands. 
The Duke of Holstein- Gottorp then broke 
his allegiance and declared against the 
king, and though he lost all his possessions 
in the course of the war, they were re- 
stored to him by the treaty of Lubeck, in 
1629, between the Emperor and the King 
of Denmark. The hatred between the 
reigning lines had become inveterate. The 
Duke again united with Sweden, and Carl 
Gustav, crossing the belt on the ice, during 
the winter, 1658, forced Frederik III., the 
son and successor of Christian IV., in the 
treaties of Roeskilde and Copenhagen, the 
same year, to concede to the Duke and 



For the Possession of Schkswig. 



15 



his descendants the sovereignty and sii- 
preme dominion of the Gottorp division of 
Schleswig. The feudal dependence on 
Denmark was thus abohshed in the Hol- 
stein- Gottorp dynasty, but continued with 
its mihtary service and other duties in the 
lateral lines of Sonderborg, and the intro- 
duction of a hereditary succession in Den- 
mark, in 16G0, strengthened the ties be- 
tween the larger or royal part of the 
duchy and the kingdom. 

The revolution of 1660 forms a new period 
in the history of Denmark. It overturned 
the old elective constitution, with its pow- 
erful oligarchical council of state, [Rigs- 
raad) and the extravagant privileges of the 
nobility. The king, according to the new 
lex. regia, (Kongelov,) became the most ab- 
solute monarch in Europe, and the succes- 
sion of the crown was settled both on 
the male and female descendants of the 
Oldenborg dynasty. The duchies did not 
subscribe the new act of sovereignty, or 
renew their oath of allegiance, nor did they 
directly take any part in those transacctions ; 
the lex regia, however, distinctly expresses 
the leading principles, which remain as the 
guiding rule for the question about the rela- 
tions of Schleswig to the kingdom. In its 
19th article it enjoins the kingto secure, en- 
tire and undivided, under the Danish crown, 
not only the realms of Denmark and Nor- 
way, with all the provinces and islands 
belonging to them, but moreover all pos- 
sessions which may be acquired by the 
sword, or other legal titles, and thus ex- 
presses the indivisibility of the kingdoms 
and all other possessions which belonged 
to Denmark in 1665. The grand-son of 
King Frederik III. at last found an oppor- 
tunity to realize this principle by uniting 
and incorporating the whole duchy of 
Schleswig in 1720. The hostile relations 
between the house of Holstein- Gottorp 
and the crown of Denmark continued 
during the i-emainder of tlie seventeenth 
century, and on the breaking out of the 
great northern war between Sweden, Rus- 
sia, Brandenburg and Denmark, Duke 
Charles Frederik of Holstein-Gottorp, 
who liad taken side with Charles XII. of 
Sweden, lost all his possessions in Schles- 
wig. They were conquered by King 
Frederik IV. and his Danish army in 1713, 
and at the general peace that followed the 
death of Charles XII. in Norway, 1718, 
Denmark, giving up all her other con- 



quests, secured the duchy of Schleswig as 
a permanent and inalienable possession by 
the strongest guaranty of Sweden, 
England and France.* 

By letter patent of the 22d of August, 
1721, the inhabitants of the conquered ter- 
ritory were called upon to do homage to 
Frederik IV. as their lawful sovereign, 
and the two districts of Apenrade and Got- 
torp were incorporated with that part of 
the duchy, which previously had belonged 
to the Danish crown. The estates of 
Schleswig took the oath of allegiance to 
the king and his hereditary successors, ac- 
cording to the lex regia, at the castle of 
Gottorp, on the 4th of September, 1721. 
The junior branches of the house of Old- 
enborg, the Dukes of Augustenborg and 
Glucksborg, who did not possess any 
sovereign rights, gave their oath in writing. 
In the letter patent and the formulary for 
the oath of allegiance, the king expressly 
mentions Schleswig as an integral part of 
the crown of Denmark, from which it had 
been torn away in disastrous times, and 
declares it henceforth eternally to be in- 
corporated as a part of the kingdom. This 
declaration is definite, but it was not com- 
pletely executed. King Frederik IV. did 
not realize his first intention of incorpo- 
rating Schleswig as a province. It re- 
mained a separate hereditary duchy, en- 
joying its ancient privileges, but by its 
participating in the regulations of the lex 
regia of 1665, it now followed the cognate 
succession of Denmark. In accordance 
with the new relations into which Schles- 
wio^ thus entered in 1721 with the kinor- 
dom, the arms of the duchy were quartered 
with those of Denmark Proper; " and so," 
says the excellent historian. Professor 
Christian Molbech, "after a partial sepa- 
ration this fertile and important province 
again became an organic and indivisible 
part of the state." 

And yet was the possession of Schles- 
wig far from being undisturbed. Den- 

* " His Britannic Majesty agrees to guaranty 
and to maintain and to continue in peaceful posses- 
sion that part of the duchy of Schleswig -which his 
Danisli Majesty has in his hands, and to defend the 
same in the best manner possible, against all and 
every one who may endeavor to disturb liim therein, 
either directly or mdirectly." Treaty between 
Denmark and Great Britain of the 26th of July, 
1720. The treaty with Sweden is dated June the 
14th, and that with France August 18th, the 
same year. 



16 



Wars betweefi the Danes and Germans, 



mark had to carry on the contest for more 
than fifty years. The threatening storm 
came no longer from Sweden — which, van- 
quished and weakened during the disas- 
trous wars of Charles XII., had now 
for a time retreated from the great politi- 
cal theatre — but from the more dangerous 
Russian Empire. The duke Charles Fred- 
erik had taken his residence in Kiel, in 
Holstein, where he strenuously protested 
against the cession of Schleswig. He soon 
after married Anne Petrowna, the daugh- 
ter of Peter the Great, and became thus, 
supported by Russia, a formidable enemy 
to Denmark. Yet the prudent Christian 
VI., the son and successor of Frederik 
IV., found the means to frustrate the war- 
like schemes of the duke, without any 
rupture with that power. More imminent 
seemed the war in 1762, when, on the 
death of the Empress Elizabeth, Peter III., 
the son of Charles Frederick, succeeded 
her on the throne of Russia. The first act 
of his reign was a declaration of war against 
Frederik V. of Denmark. As the head of 
the house of Holstein- Gottorp, he renewed 
his claims to the ceded part of Schleswig. 
Immense armaments were undertaken in 
Denmark ; a fine fleet of sixty men-of-war 
was sent cruising in the Baltic, and an 
army of seventy thousand combatants was 
advancing upon the Russians in the envi- 
rons of Wismar, when the news of the 
revolution at St. Petersburg, the violent 
abdication and murder of Peter, put a sud- 
den stop to the military demonstrations. 
Catherine II., his successor, did not prose- 
cute the quarrel of her hot-headed hus- 
band.*' She recalled the Russian troops 
from Mecklenburg and concluded a treaty 
with Denmark, which was confirmed by 
her son, the Emperor Paul, in 1Y73, in ac- 
cordance with which, the house of Hol- 
stein- Gottorp forever renounced all claims 
upon Schleswig, and by a second treaty of 
the same date, exchanged its possessions 
and rights in the duchy of Holstein for the 
counties of Oldenborg and Delmenhorst, 



* Mr. D'Israeli, M. P., said in his speech on the 
19th of April last, in the House of Commons: 
" When Russia was about to invade Denmark, 
and the latter having applied to this country, 
England signified her intention to carry out the 
provisions of her guaranty, and in consequence 
of that notification, Russia did not invade Schles- 
wig." 



ceded to it in return by the King of Den- 
mark. The completeness of the cession 
of Schleswig on the part of Russia is still 
more evident, when compared with her 
exchange of the counties of Delmen- 
horst and Oldenborg for the Gottorp share 
of Holstein. According to the former 
treaty, Schleswig is ceded to the King of 
Denmark and his royal successors, while 
the latter mentions only King Christian 
VII. and his brother. Prince Frederik, 
with their male heirs ; thus declaring that 
Russia reserved her rights to Holstein on 
the extinction of the male descendants of 
the reigning dynasty.* 

By these treaties and later settlements 
with the lateral lines of Augustenborg 
and Beck, the house of Oldenborg came 
at last into undisputed possession both of 
Schleswig and Holstein. The latter duchy, 
though a German fief, was incorporated 
with the kingdom of Denmark in 1806, on 
the dissolution of the German empire, in 
consequence of the victories and conquests 
of the Emperor Napoleon. But at the 
Congress of Vienna in 1815, Holstein again 
entered into connection with the Germanic 
confederation. King Frederik VI., as 
duke of Holstein, obtained a vote in the 
diet of Frankfort, and bound himself to 
join the federal army with a contingent of 
three thousand five hundred troops. 

At the general peace in 1815, all the 
different nations, which formed the coah- 
tion against France, had been the gainers. 
Denmark alone, as the faithful ally of the 
Emperor Napoleon, had been almost crush- 
ed under the weight of accumulated dis- 
asters, and from a flourishing kingdom of 
the second rank, with a numerous army, a 
gallant navy and extensive commerce, she 
had then, in her isolated position, dwindled 
down to a small state, of a third or fourth 
rank among the victorious nations around 
her. Her capital had been burnt ; her 
fleet carried ofi"; her colonies, credit and 
commerce nearly destroyed — and to crown 
all, Norway had been surrendered to the 
Swedes, who at that time were still her 
enemies. Norway, which for nearly four 
centuries and a half had been united to her, 

* This important fact demonstrates that the 
Russian emperor, as a direct descendant of the 
Dukes of Holstein-Gottorp, has a nearer claim to 
the duchy of Holstein, than the Duke and Prince 
of Augustenborg. •• 



For the Possession of Schkswig. 



17 



and whose people bore in origin, language, 
history and manners, the closest affinity to 
the Danes, was now violently severed from 
her sister kingdom. Denmark received, by 
way of compensation, but a very imperfect 
one, and on her part very reluctantly, an- 
other small slice of German territory, cut 
away with the large carving knife of the 
Congress of Vienna, from the newly 
liberated people of Germany, in the duchy 
of Lauenborg. The circumstances which 
brought that German duchy under the 
Danish crown are very remarkable. When 
King Frederik VI. was obliged by the 
treaty of luel, in 1814, to cede the kingdom 
of Norway to the crown of Sweden, the 
king of that coimtry, on his pai't, offered as 
an mdemnity to the King of Denmark and 
his successors, the duchy of Swedish 
Pomerania and the principality of Riigen, 
with seventy-five and a half German square 
miles, and 160,000 inhabitants. 

Pnissia now stood forward and demand- 
ed the cession of these maritime provinces, 
proposing to give Denmark an equivalent 
territory, which it did not possess. But in 
order to fulfil its promise, Prussia then per- 
suaded the King of Hanover — George III. 
of Great Britain —to cede the duchy of Saxe- 
Lauenborg, with nineteen German square 
miles, and 45,000 inhabitants. The poor 
Lauenborgers remained six days Pi-ussian 
subjects, and were then, on the 4th of 
Jime, 1815 — "in perpetuity, with full 
sovereignty and proprietary right'' — trans- 
ferred to the King of Denmark. The 



Frankfort deputy Welcker has lately had 
the gi"eatest difficulty in persuading the 
quiet and industrious Lauenborgers that 
these ti'eaties are null and void, and that 
they, as Germans, belonging to the com- 
mon glorious fatherland, ought to take up 
arms against their Danish liege lord. 

Such were the relations between Den- 
mark and the duchies of Schleswig, Hol- 
stein and Lauenborg in 1815. There did 
not at that time exist any party spirit, any 
Schleswig-Holstein separatistic tendencies, 
which might have prognosticated any hos- 
tile conflict between the two diflferent na- 
tionahties of the monarchy. 

That movement began later, and origi- 
nated not with the people, but with the 
nobility — die Ritterschaft — and the swarm 
of German employees, forming a bureau- 
cracy, who by the ambitious intrigues of 
the princes of Augustenborg, were led to 
hope that by a final rupture with Denmark, 
they might deprive her both of Schleswig 
and Lauenborg, and thus form an inde- 
pendent state of their own, which, by its 
important maritime position on the Baltic 
and the North Sea, might, as they said, 
become the handle of the sword, which 
Germany was to throw into the scales of 
fate on the Northern Seas. 

A second article on this interesting sub- 
ject, so little understood in general, will 
give an account of the recent revolutionary 
movements in the duchies, and the events 
of the war consequent thereon. 



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